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Tales of the New Death

I saw Death today making a deal with the living gods
Nothing in this world counts as life does
But all he received was an ex-gratia
So many of its ilks had finished the deal like everything is okay

—You lose when you don’t want money, unsolicited it maybe,
To measure your worth, the gods had sighed;
Death lives forever but ever it is passionate just like the gods long to lie

When it knocked on the doors of Peace
Never can anyone, living or dead, can expect the greeting would be returned so swift
As a victim itself, begging for ultimate demise,

Just like the local poets who lurk in bamboo grooves for their masterwork
Looking for words in every leaf and un-proportionately marked stems
And to find only blood on the adjoining streets to scribble;

All the doors are closed in the town except those of the cremators
Yet it never matters—including Death and its clamour for some serenity
So now all it does is to sell stories to soulless listeners,
And so do history books come tossing, showing each empty page, on and on.